-
The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election
Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants […]
-
A note on self-defence
The phrase “Israel has the right to defend itself” is said almost-reflexively in response to every single Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Of course, few here in the West would challenge this notion (and I certainly don’t seek to). Instead, I argue that the term self-defence has been erroneously deployed in this instance. The airstrikes, largely […]
-
I locked a DVD case by accident…
I try to open a DVD case that has one of those awful locks that stores used to put in DVDs for 14 minutes.